It seems many of our state legislators don’t believe the National Rifle Association (NRA) has enough power.
They also apparently believe local elected officials don’t know what is best for their communities and need the oversight of the state to tell them what to do.
The Pennsylvania Senate voted last week in favor of a bill to give groups like the NRA legal standing to sue municipalities over local gun laws. The senators sent the measure back to the House where it was approved by a 138-56 vote.
State House Republicans amended the bill to include language that would allow groups such as the National Rifle Association and others to sue individual municipalities for what these groups would consider an infringement on their constitutional rights.
Mayor Michael Nutter criticized the measure, which is now on its way to Gov. Tom Corbett for his signature before it becomes law.
“We are profoundly opposed to the provisions added to HB 80 in the Senate,” Nutter said. “Gun violence represents a particularly tragic epidemic in poorer communities in cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Parents, family members and community leaders are naturally compelled by concern for their loved ones to do everything in their power to combat the shootings that destroy lives. It is squarely at some of these responses by the community that HB 80 is now aimed. The standing and attorneys fees [for] provisions of HB 80 raise the stakes for local governments, and the communities they serve, for trying to do something about illegal gun violence.”
Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto also endorsed Nutter’s perspective.
This amendment was promoted and supported by the NRA, and is aimed at protecting gun dealers and others who are engaged in the business of selling firearms and ammunition.
Specifically the amendment would:
•Allow a court to award reasonable expenses to a person “adversely affected.” “Expenses” include, but is not limited to, attorney fees, expert witness fees, court costs and compensation for loss of income.
•“Person” includes a membership organization in which a member is a person who may legally possess a firearm under federal and state law or a dealer who sells firearms and ammunition.
Republican state legislators are seeking to counter legislation enacted by local elected officials to curb gun violence in their communities.
Senator Richard Alloway II, an A-rated NRA lifetime member, who voted with the majority explained his vote this way: “At least 50 individual municipalities have enacted their own firearms ordinances that are more prohibitive than those set by the commonwealth, and therefore in violation of the Pennsylvania Constitution. The unfortunate reality is a person—who is abiding by state law, but is in breach of a municipal ordinance—has no way to recover damages they have incurred as a result of their legal battle, a legal battle they should not have had to fight in the first place.”
Philadelphia, which is still plagued by gun violence despite a recent decline, is one of those municipalities that had the foresight to enact its own firearms ordinance.
The legislation, if signed by Gov. Corbett, gives special license to the NRA to push its agenda in Pennsylvania courts at the expense of local taxpayers.
(Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune)
